EMISSIONS- Analysis: Contradictory coal data clouds China’s CO2 emissions ‘rebound’ in 2022. New preliminary energy data from the Chinese government suggests there was a 1.3% rebound in the nation’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions during 2022. However, separate figures point to a 1% decline. The discrepancy centres on official coal consumption data, which recorded a 3.3% surge in demand during 2022. In contrast, activity in the major coal-consuming sectors ranged from weak growth in coal power (+0.7%), through to declines in output for steel (-2%) and cement (-11%). Analysis of these trends for Carbon Brief points to zero growth in China’s coal use in 2022, rather than the officially reported 3.3% increase. At the same time, there were falls in demand for oil and gas last year, as well as a significant drop in cement production. The scale of the uncertainty over the true nature of China’s coal demand means it is hard to establish whether there was an overall rise or fall in the country’s CO2 emissions in 2022. This difference could have global implications for action on climate change. Whether the official coal data for 2022 is correct or not, the country moved further off track against its near-term targets for carbon and energy intensity. These targets from China’s 14th five-year plan, first published in 2021, aim to cut the amount of energy and CO2 associated with each unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2025. Given projected increases in GDP, these goals are likely to require near-zero emissions growth after this year, as well as rapid improvements in energy- and carbon-intensity out to 2025. Structural drivers of emissions decline......China’s CO2 emissions had started to fall in summer 2021, after the surge that followed the first Covid lockdowns in early 2020. This fall conitinuedinto the first half of 2022, extending what had already become the longest sustained decline in China’s emissions in recent history.       https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29102023/who-were-the-worst-of-the-worst-climate-polluters-in-2022/?utm_source=InsideClimate+News&utm_campaign=3ed269bdcf-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_11_04_01_00&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_29c928ffb5-3ed269bdcf-327998718

When Is a Killed Alberta Coal Mine Really Dead? Never, according to the regulator’s stance on Grassy Mountain. That’s ‘preposterous and illegal,’ states a legal expert. Just two years ago, concerted protests by Alberta ranchers, municipal districts, irrigators, artists and conservationists forced the highly unpopular government of Jason Kenney to seemingly reverse its controversial plans to revoke 45-year-old protections and open the Rockies to Australian coal miners. Opposition proved so fierce and widespread that the government not only halted its pro-mining push but then struck a Coal Policy Committee that same year — complete with public hearings. The committee’s principal recommendations that no coal mining occur until land use planning has been completed later formed the central directions of a ministerial order in 2022 that banned coal mining in the eastern slopes of the Rockies.That order specifically directed the Alberta Energy Regulator that no new coal mining activities or applications will be permitted on Class 1, 2, 3 or 4 lands as defined in Alberta’s 1976 Coal Development Policy “with the exception of lands subject to an advanced coal projeThe ministerial order defined an advanced coal project as one in which a developer “has submitted a project summary to the AER for the purposes of determining whether an environmental impact assessment (EIA) is required.” But the last time the Grassy Mountain project submitted a summary and EIA was in 2015. In 2021, a joint panel review representing federal and provincial regulators firmly  rejected that project by an Australian outfit called Benga Mining. The panel concluded that the project’s economic, wildlife and water impacts were not in the public interest. In response to that resounding application denial, Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart renamed Benga Mining by calling it Northback Holdings, which her global company Hancock Prospecting owns. She then appointed a new CEO, hired a Toronto lobbying firm and in September applied for new permits to divert water and explore for coal with the intent of resurrecting plans for a massive open-pit coal mine in the headwaters of the Oldman River. That megaproject borders on coal leases owned by another Australian firm, Atrum Coal, which would have gained railway access through Grassy Mountain. United Conservative Party Energy Minister Brian Jean now says that Rinehart’s Grassy Mountain project is exempt from the ministerial order that seemingly killed it because the AER defines it as an “advanced coal project.”  His comment followed aggressive lobbying by Rinehart and the Coal Association of Canada in the past two months. Nigel Bankes, a prominent regulatory lawyer and retired University of Calgary law professor, calls the Alberta government’s position totally preposterous and illegal.             https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2023/10/10/Killed-Alberta-Coal-Mine/?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&location=intro

Documents filed by Imperial Oil show the company and Alberta’s energy regulator knew the Kearl oil sands mine was seeping tailings into groundwater years before a pool of contaminated fluid was reported on the surface, alarming area First Nations and triggering three investigations, the Canadian Press reports. “They knew there was seepage to groundwater,” said Mandy Olsgard, an environmental toxicologist who has consulted for area First Nations. However, the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) and Imperial “decided not to notify the public and just manage it internally.” The revelations add to a timeline of events that had already made headlines, after a report by management consultants at Deloitte showed big shortcomings in the regulator’s protocols:.......2015: Imperial introduced a “seepage interception system.”........2019: According to Olsgard, the AER was already aware of seepage by this year.......2020 & 2021: Reports from Imperial sent to the AER during these years confirmed tailings residues were detected at monitoring wells 70 kilometres north of Fort McMurray........2022: In May, reports of discoloured water around the Kearl lease boundary prompted an AER inspector’s visit to observe the seep areas. These seepages were classified as an “incident,” not an “emergency.” Subsequently, only one email was sent to a single point of contact for nearby First Nations communities, without any follow-up........2023: Another leak reported in February spilled roughly 5.3 million litres of industrial wastewater from a storage pond, prompting the AER to issue an environmental protection order against Imperial to address the contamination. At this time, the earlier leak detected in May, 2022 became more widely known, resulting in a backlash of criticism from affected communities. Substances found at concentrations above desired limits included naphthenic acids, dissolved solids, and sulphates—a common proxy for hydrocarbon residue. Oil sands tailings are considered toxic to fish and other wildlife. In May 2022, the seepage was reported to First Nations and communities as discoloured water pooling on the surface. They received little information after that until February 2023, when the regulator issued environmental protection orders against Imperial—and then only after 5.3 million litres of contaminated wastewater escaped from a holding pond.....read on        n/  https://www.theenergymix.com/2023/10/03/revealed-imperial-oil-alberta-regulator-knew-of-toxic-seepage-at-kearl-lake-for-years-didnt-tell-first-nation/#:~:text=Documents%20filed%20by%20Imperial%20Oil,investigations%2C%20the%20Canadian%20Press%20reports.

FOSSIL FUEL CORPORATIONS ARE IN FOR THE LONG HAUL.Given the chance, fossil fuel giants will just keep on digging and drilling until there is nothing left and our world is a burning wreck SEP 18, 2023 If you are one of the surely rapidly diminishing group of people that think fossil fuel corporations can still be part of the solution to the climate crisis, think again. The reality is, given the chance to do so, they will continue to suck up oil and gas, and hack out coal until - quite literally - there is no tomorrow, at least as far as a functioning global society is concerned. A report published a couple of weeks back by ActionAid International revealed that, between 2016 and 2022 the fossil fuel sector attracted $3.2 trillion of investment to support massive expansion into the global south. Here, the plan is to block urgent efforts to decarbonize economies by exploiting all and any fossil fuel reserves, so locking countries into high-carbon futures and guaranteeing big increases in greenhouse gas emissions. This seemingly endless push to exploit oil, gas and coal wherever it can be found, tells us everything we need to know about how the fossil fuel industry sees the future. It may be one of blistering heat and extreme weather, of collapsing ice sheets and rapidly rising sea levels, but it will also be one of business as usual - or so the big corporations assume. We know this because of a revealing report, published in 2017 by the responsible investment charity, ShareAction. This went largely under the radar at a time, and the full implications are only now beginning to hit home. The report revealed that while, in public, supporting the idea of keeping the global average temperature rise (since pre-industrial times) to 1.5C, oil and gas giants BP and Shell were both evaluating the resilience of their businesses on a planet between 3C and 5C hotter. This really is quite extraordinary, and completely damning, amounting as it does to a de facto acceptance of catastrophic climate breakdown in the decades to come. The report is now six years old, but I have seen no evidence that makes me think their plans might have changed. Think about the implications of this for a moment. The only way temperatures will reach these sorts of values is if there is little or no action on curbing emissions driven by the burning of fossils fuels. The corollary of this is that BP, Shell and other big polluters, have no intention of cutting back or stopping the production of the oil, gas and coal that will cause this. In apparently accepting hothouse conditions as a fait accompli, they are also sending the message that they are perfectly relaxed about the millions of deaths and planetary ruin this will cause. They are, when all is said and done, developing future business models predicated on the devastation of billions of lives and livelihoods. If this doesn't qualify as a crime against humanity, I am not sure what does.  The truth is that the fossil fuel sector will never reign in production unless it is compelled to. Left to its own devices, it will continue to throw miniscule scraps of cash at petty renewables projects to underpin duplicitous greenwashing campaigns, while focusing almost entirely on what it does best, pumping hydrocarbons and screwing the planet.         https://billmcguire.substack.com/p/fossil-fuel-corporations-are-in-for